Tag: SenseMakers

GK VanPatter’s new LinkedIn blog post addresses this often asked question: How does 21st century SenseMaking practice differ from Karl Weick’s SenseMaking?

“Many of our clients and readers know Weick’s work well. Often the question behind the question is: How does that literature, that theory, those constructions fit with what we do at Humantific?

Widely recognized as an important American organizational psychologist and theorist, Karl E. Weick is among the pioneers of the contemporary SenseMaking movement. The author of several important books including SenseMaking in Organizations, his work connects across numerous knowledge communities of practice.

While acknowledging and appreciating Karl Weick, we think it is important to recognize that his work represents only one of several avenues that lead into what is now 21st century SenseMaking. Weick’s avenue is one that happens to have a particular texture, tone, and focus. Other avenues with different textures and tones also exist.

To place Weick in perspective we appreciate this cross-community picture:”

Congratulations to our friends and colleagues Thilo von Debschitz and Uta von Debschitz for the successful redesign and republishing of the new expanded 390 page volume on Fritz Kahn. Bigger and better than the previous 2011 version this large format 2013 monograph will become an inspiring historical volume for many interested in the early days of what might be called metaphorical or analogous information design.

Inside are wonderful early versions of several forms of information design (now often being redepicted as “info-graphics”) including data visualizations and idea or concept visualizations. You don’t have to agree with every idea to appreciate the richness of this amazing work.Continue Reading..

Heavily weighted towards the technology aspects of the Big Data wave we were delighted to see growing awareness expressed regarding the human-centered aspects of the role of data and information in problem-solving and innovation.

For us these were the most important points in the 145 page document:

“Presenting information in such a way that people can consume it effectively is a key challenge that needs to be met if analyzing data is to lead to concrete action.”

“Human beings may have limits in their ability to consume and understand big data. The generation of big data may be growing exponentially and advancing technology may allow the global economy to store and process ever greater quantities of data, but there may be limits to our innate human ability—our sensory and cognitive faculties—to process this data torrent. It is said that the mind can handle about seven pieces of information in its short-term memory.”

“The topic of information overload has been widely studied by academics from neuroscientists to economists. Economist Herbert Simon once said, “A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.”

“Despite these apparent limits, there are ways to help organizations and individuals to process, visualize, and synthesize meaning from big data. For instance, more sophisticated visualization techniques and algorithms, including automated algorithms, can enable people to see patterns in large amounts of data and help them to unearth the most pertinent insights.”

“Advancing collaboration technology also allows a large number of individuals, each of whom may possess understanding of a special area of information, to come together in order to create a whole picture to tackle interdisciplinary problems.”

“Human beings have evolved to become highly effective at perceiving certain types of patterns with their senses but continue to face significant constraints in their ability to process other types of data such as large amounts of numerical or text data. For this reason, there is a currently a tremendous amount of research and innovation in the field of visualization, i.e., techniques and technologies used for creating images, diagrams, or animations to communicate, understand, and improve the results of big data analyses. We present some examples to provide a glimpse into this burgeoning and important field that supports big data.”

“We project a need for 1.5 million additional managers and analysts in the United States who can can ask the right questions and consume the results of the analysis of big data effectively.”

The visualization examples provided in this McKinsey report are somewhat primitive and there seemed to be little awareness regarding the information design community that has been focused on shaping data and information for human digestion long before the current Big Data wave arrived.

In addition there were no examples of humans interacting with visualized information that has been integrated directly into innovation process. This report did not really talk about how leading firms are already working at this intersection combining visual sensemaking with advanced problem solving. Humantific has been working this intersection since 2001! We have already learned alot about the human to information to innovation interface! In terms of capability we call this The New Adaptability….more soon!

Overall this is an excellent report worth reading. It can be downloaded for free.

“In the future your children and their children will be doing jobs we can scarcely imagine now. Their titles will be as wacky to us as ”software developer” must once have been to a baby boomer. Try making sense of a ”virtchandise manager”, an ”outcome aggregator”, a ”data evangelist” or even a ”sensemaking analyst”…”

Of course SenseMaking has already evolved into much more than “data analysis.” Today SenseMakers are already being called upon to make sense of many complex situations in organizations and in societies. Often those complexities are abstract and not data based. In fact data based sensemaking is a small subset of what leading Visual SenseMakers do.

It’s always great to see graduate students inspired by Humantific. Attending the Executive MBA program at University of Reading Business School in Denmark, our new best friend, Sandra Greve, recently completed her thesis entitled, “Towards an Understanding of How to Enhance SenseMaking in Organizational Strategic Change.“

A big Wooooooo Hoooooooo for Sandra!

As the rise of SenseMaking appears on more and more radar screens, what we are seeing is that seasoned professionals from many backgrounds are becoming interested.

Humantific is delighted to be part of an ever-expanding community, engaged from many different angles, in the re-examination and reinvention of SenseMaking. We started presenting on the subject in 1998 at a Cooper-Hewitt Conference, here in NYC. Not everyone understood what we were talking about then, but, since that time, we have seen steady growing interest in the value of continous SenseMaking in the context of a continously changing world.

If you have an interest in this subject, and would like to attend a future SenseMaker Dialogs event in Copenhagen, Madrid, Barcelona, New York, San Francisco, or Sao Paulo, feel free to subscribe to Humantific Quarterly or send us an email: programs (at) humantific (dot) com

To view and or download a full copy of Sandra Greve’s MBA thesis (Courtesy of Sandra), Click Here

[slideshow=32]The SenseMaker Dialogs series kicked off on August 13, 2009 at Parsons The New School for Design in New York. SenseMaker Dialogs is a new speaker series focused on the rapidly changing hybrid activity of SenseMaking in the 21st century. Elizabeth Pastor, CoFounder of Humantific was moderator for the informal evening session. Speakers for the evening were Marshall Clemens, Founder of Idiagram, and Brian Willison, Director of Parsons Institute for Information Mapping. Humantific CoFounder Garry VanPatter provided the introduction to SenseMaking and explained how its evolution fits into the changing picture of design thinking in leading innovation practices today.

To get on the advance registration list for the upcoming SenseMaker Dialogs 2 in October send an email to programs (at) humantific (dot) com